These words refer to the prescribed way of conducting a formal event of significance. Rite now pertains mostly to a religious service, referring to the whole service as an entity: The Anglican rite ; the rites of puberty in primitive societies. Ritual includes but goes beyond this meaning by referring to the formal manner of conducting a tire: Puritans who objected to the emphasis on ritual . Ritual has become popular to describe any action conducted with great formality, seriousness or inflexibility: the opening-night ritual of waiting up for the drama critics’ reviews; the mysterious rituals women undergo in beauty parlours; her little ritual of agreeing with everything he said. More and more the word in this context is open to a pejorative tone that disapproves of cut-and-dried ways of behaving.

Liturgy , like rite , pertains mostly to religious services, but it is even more restricted in use to refer solely to the body of text and actions used by a Christian denomination, especially those that emphasize ritual : bishops called together to codify the liturgy ; differences in liturgy among the Catholic, Anglican and Greek Orthodox Churches.

Ceremony and observance are not confined to a religious context. Both can refer to any stylized commemorative event: debating between a religious or civil marriage ceremony . Observance can imply the formal use of rituals, like ceremony , but it is the most general of these words in suggesting any kind of commemoration whatever, formal or informal, festive or solemn, public or private: a gala observance of the Queen’s Birthday; a quiet observance of their wedding anniversary that involved a leisurely dinner for just the two of them.